Edelstein: Playing gay? Who cares?

So NBA journeyman Jason Collins ó a name I bet 99 percent of sports fans never heard of before ó came out Monday as a gay man. As noted everywhere, he is the first active participant in any of the ďbig fourĒ American sports of baseball, football, hockey and basketball to come out during his days as a player.

Excuse me while I yawn.Oh yes. Yawn. Why? because I couldnít care less if heís gay, straight, bi, poly, or whatever. I donít care. A personís sexuality carries no weight with me. I donít need to know what you do behind closed doors (and with your genitals) to form an opinion of you.

So to me: Big deal. Youíre gay. Wonderful. Alas, though, our society is still emerging from itís anti-gay cocoon. While there are plenty of people like me who just donít care, there are probably an equal amount of people who care very deeply. Iím not going to try and understand these people. Why anyone would care what another human does, sexually speaking, is beyond me. Louis C.K. put it best ó and Iím paraphrasing here ó but as long as gay people arenít breaking into my house and having sex in my living room while Iím trying to watch TV, well, who cares.

So as far as earth-shattering announcements, I was more interested in Tim Tebow being released.

But ÖBut I hope Collins inspires other closeted gay sports figures to come out into the open. In fact, I hope thereís a landslide of gay athletes. Why? Two reasons. First reason is to just put this whole thing behind us. We donít blink anymore at gay politicians or gay actors, so why should we blink at gay athletes?

As for the second reason Ö gay kids who play sports now have someone they can look up to, someone who makes it OK to be both gay and an athlete. Wouldnít surprise me one bit to see a bunch of number 98s on our high school courts, rinks and fields in the coming months.

Jeff Edelstein can be reached at jedelstein@trentonian.com, facebook.com/jeffreyedelstein and twitter.com/jeffedelstein.